Monsanto, Roundup, Food and Pharmaceuticals

So, here’s the news I decided to tackle this morning; “Oatmeal has cancer causing glyphosate”. Wait, what? Seriously? In my half-awake state was pretty alarmed as I, personally, eat a heck of a lot of oats and I can’t often afford the organic stuff. I grind it onto flour and use it instead of white flour in almost everything I bake. I use it for protein shakes, pancakes, muffins… you get the idea. Not only that but I’ve got a box of Unicorn Lucky Charms in my kitchen right now left over from my daughter’s birthday. Talk about magical!

So anyway, I shook off the sleep and grabbed the computer to get to work on this topic.

My first question before I’d even really talked to anyone or explored it from a social media perspective was to verify a hunch with a Google search;

“Does Monsanto own Quaker Oats”. Seemed like the obvious first step, right?

Hmmm… no longer shocked. I shrugged and was sort of apathetic about it, then started laughing at myself for being so shocked because, I mean honestly… How is anyone even remotely surprised about this? Don’t we all know by now that all mainstream roads lead back to Monsanto and each of those roads are drenched in Round Up? Isn’t that common knowledge at this point?

No. It’s clearly not. I mean, I even forgot for a minute.

The more I thought about all this alongside my 7 1/2 year journey as a parent and how things like this led me to being called “The Cautious Mom” in the first place, I started to get angry. The more angry I got, the more I remembered how many times I brought this exact issue up to people who literally LITERALLY laughed in my face and said “even if that hippy nonsense is true there’s nothing you can do about it so why lose sleep over it? Might as well eat what you enjoy and forget about it.”

Eventually, my passion for the topic of safer food wained as I got too tired and too busy to keep swimming upstream. I had two small children, a growing vocal coaching business, a child with special needs and a household to run… I had no time to fight with random people for hours attime on the internet and not enough personal understanding of bioengineering and chemistry to hold my own in arguments against the people who will blindly follow anyone with the letters “MD” after their names. After a while, it seemed like maybe I was overthinking things, drawing connections where there weren’t any… maybe they were right and it was just too hard to fight against it. Maybe I should just let it go…

Here’s some excerpts from the articles I’ve read in the last hour:

“Significant levels of the weed killing chemical glyphosate have been found in an array of popular breakfast cereals, oats and snack bars marketed to US children”

“Tests revealed glyphosate, the active ingredient in the popular weedkiller brand Roundup, present in all but two of the 45 oat-derived products that were sampled by the Environmental Working Group”.

“Nearly three in four of the products exceeded what the EWG classes safe for children to consume.”

“The jury also found that Monsanto “acted with malice” in failing to warn him about the potential health effects of the chemical, glyphosate.”

“a series of independent studies in the past few years have revealed that small amounts of glyphosate residue end up on the packaged food sold in every aisle of the grocery store.”

“The findings follow a landmark decision in a San Francisco court last week to order that Monsanto pay $289m in damages to Dewayne Johnson, a 46-year-old former groundskeeper. A jury deemed that Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller caused Johnson’s cancer and that it had failed to warn him about the health risks of exposure.”

Quaker

Kellogg’s

General Mills

What do they have in common? They ALL USE MONSANTO GRAINS and now with this ruling, it’s become a 100% verifiable fact that this company has placed money over the world’s health. The company is planning to appeal this court ruling even though glyphosate has been deemed a known carcinogen. This is sure to be a battle with lots of science thrown around on both sides, so once again, it’s going to be us, the parents, to decide for ourselves who we want to believe.

My question this morning is, why would anyone expect anything other than that from this company? They’ve proven many times to place profit above long-term health, so why wouldn’t this be obvious? Because there’s regulations and rules to protect us? Oh, I know… it’s because only “crunchy”, psudo-science loving, crazy people believe that nonsense, right? Only those wackjobs like that Avocado dude and the Food Babe are stupid enough to believe that, right?

Oh… c’mon, now. The FDA approved smoking as long as they absolutely, possibly could get away with doing it because of money. They didn’t just suddenly grow a conscience or gain “new, miraculous” information that made it clear cigarettes are actually bad for you.. they just finally could no longer hide the facts they already knew. It’s their process to convince the public that people like The Food Babe are crazy so that you don’t listen to them. That’s not conspiracy, that’s history. Hold off any change as long as people let you and profit as long as possible. That’s the pattern.

If I sound a little put out, you’re right. I am furious about this. Like tantrum-throwing, volcano-blowing levels of angry on behalf of everyone who trusted them and for everyone who has been trying to fight against it for so long while being told they were crazy.

I mean, I wish I could say this story comes as a great shock, but it doesn’t. Monsanto’s name attached to anything should automatically have you adding Roundup to the list of ingredients. It’s not a secret that most cereal companies use Monsanto grains. In fact, they’ve made it nearly impossible for these companies NOT to use them.

In a report made by the Center for Food Safety, it’s written that Monsanto “has bought or merged with most of the major seed companies to gain an important level of control over seed germplasm; it has acquired a multitude of patents on both genetic engineering techniques and genetically engineered seed varieties, thus dominating the market in biotech crops; and it has required that any farmer purchasing its seed must first sign an agreement prohibiting the saving of seed, thereby forcing farmers to repurchase Monsanto’s seed every year. These tactics have afforded this one company unprecedented control over the sale and use of crop seed in the United States.”

Once they started genetically engineering their seeds to have Roundup in them from the start, (Roundup Ready”, they called it) and the FDA/CDC saw nothing wrong with that, I pretty much lost hope in our entire system of food and drug safety. They allow grocery stores to put red dye in your meat so you don’t know it’s already spoiled. You think they’re NOT going to approve a product that will bring in BILLIONS of dollars if it’s “maybe/probably/can’t really be proven to be bad for you”? Really now?

They allowed Monsanto soy to be turned into baby formula. They allowed Monsanto grains to corner the market in all areas of agriculture in this nation. Did you know some nations refuse to even do trade with us because they have laws against the crap Monsanto does to their products and yet, it’s fine here… why? Because money.

I began to do my own research while doing what I could to stay away from the things that had veils of “proprietary secrets” covering them. I also looked for things like government pay-outs and courtroom settlements. Which companies had the most quiet, yet, expensive grievances? Which food and drug companies had the highest number, in cost and victims, of injury-motivated pay outs? Monsanto and Pfizer had a great deal, I noticed. But wait… upon further investigation…guess what?! Those are the same people! Monsanto and Pfizer are literally the same company. Want to know who else Monsanto owns/is affiliated with? Abbott Nutrition, who makes Similac. In fact they, alongside Nestle and Mead Johnson Nutrition as the three largest formula producers world-wide, ALL use Monsanto-patented grains. Now, I don’t know about you, but I can’t help but see this connection; If Monsanto’s GMO’s make you ill, Pfizer will be there to give you medication for said illnesses. Either way, the parent company still makes money, right? You know if this were a movie, that’d totally be a thing.

…I promise I’m not as crazy in real life as all this makes me sound, I’m just really tired.

My question is… are they going to test all these products, too? All the ones under the Monsanto umbrella, but especially the ones that pass the lips of babies worldwide?

The latter two formula companies made a statement a few yers ago that they will NOT remove their Monsanto-grain products and people should really just calm down. It’s all just fine, trust them, stop worrying so much.

I remember thinking then that I couldn’t see how any parent wasn’t offended by the easy dismissal repeatedly given over our concerns. To me, that’s the equivalent of the mansplaining dude in a lab coat patting our heads and telling us not to muss our lipstick over such a trivial topic we know nothing about. Leave the actual thinking to them because doctors never make mistakes.

Mmmhmm… No one ever dies of a prescribed drug interaction, either, right? No doctor has ever been wrong about any diagnosis or prescription and we should all just trust a scientist’s opinions at face value, especially if they have a lot of backing from our government and the medical community with personal profit to gain.

“*Pat pat* don’t worry your pretty little head over it, dear… leave the thinking to us and just do what the doctor says because they spent 10+ years in school and all you did was read the internet.”

Now listen, I know where you think I’m going with this but I’m not even going to add in the vaccine element because, I mean let’s be honest. Intelligent scientists and our government would never, ever jeopardize us by creating a product that generates millions of dollars at the expense of the general population. That would be pure science fiction, right? The synopsis of a horror film, not REAL life?!

Right.

Of course.

…And that’s exactly why the Epipen is $500. Oh, but they just announced they are going to release a generic version for a “reasonable” price of $300 instead of the current $600! What saints, these guys! Oh, and the boost of over 1 BILLION dollars in sales of the $600 epipen totally didn’t benefit the company whatsoever, right? Their CEO wasn’t given a 19 million dollar raise the year that happened, right? Actually, yes, that totally happened. But still, that’s totally coincidence because pharmaceutical companies wouldn’t put money over human lives. They may be willing to release another version at a much more reasonable, currently undisclosed cost, but only IF the FDA approves it…

*Sidenote; The Epipen is a Pfizer product, which we’ve already determined is owned by Monsanto. It’s been said their generic version of this drug is being done in no way to benefit the public, because it will ensure their place at the very top of every food chain possible in this area. Their patented device cannot, at this time, be duplicated without patent infringement, so all roads must lead back to their bank accounts if other companies want to make their own. This is being fought in court, though, so that may change soon.

Moving on…

ANYway, back on track – You see how this is all the same conversation, right? The bottom line is it’s all about money. Money and corporate connections between only a few major companies. Money is king far and above the safety of our families and if you do the research yourself, you will see how each of these companies are connected and profit from one another. That stuff is literally public information, not science fiction, not conspiracy.

That’s why it’s so important for every parent to make CAUTIOUS and informed choices.

If you can’t tell, it’s hard for me not to take this a little personally. I apologize if my post is full of vitriol and “I told you so” finger-pointing. If it hurts your feelings, I truly am sorry. My anger is not directed toward you, mama. My heart hurts for you and your babies knowing that they could have been hurt by this company. AGAIN. I’m angry for you and for my own family. As I let my guard down I, too, allowed these products into my home. So let’s all please remember to be angry at the right people. Be angry at your government for approving this or not even bothering to check, even when citizens and doctors and scientists have been screaming at them to do more testing for the last 40+ years. Be angry at these corporations for choosing money over you and your child’s health and doing whatever they can to make naysayers look like crazy people. Be angry at their shady practices and pre-purchased test studies and the injury buy-outs done as quietly as possible.

What can we do? There’s a few things;

Do your research before denouncing these issues as fake news. Consider what else they may be approving because of money above your health. Consider what other companies you trust on blind faith because they either don’t allow you to fully understand their processes claiming “proprietary secrets” prevent them from doing so. Consider the products we put into our bodies that may never have even had the testing done at all to ensure your safety or the proof of that testing isn’t readily available for public viewing. Consider how much easier it is for them to get these products approved with little to no testing because demanding more natural options has been so fiercely demonized as crazy or stupid.

Follow the money. Look up injury reports and company pay-offs. Make the best choices you can for your family and respect others’ choices even if they are different from yours. Encourage other parents to seek answers. Try not to shut down if someone says something you don’t agree with, but encourage them to seek more truth and help them. Try to listen and consider that there may be more to the story than meets the eye. Make sure your sources are verifiable, but are not paid for by the companies themselves to say what makes them look better. Oh, and probably best not to listen to the stories published on websites that have music you can’t shut off, random space-themed backgrounds, or have follow up stories about Area 51. *wink*

To me, the big take away here is that we MUST stop dividing each other with these issues. What foods our kids eat is one of the major mommy war topics and it needlessly divides us as a parenting community but we’ve got to stop that. Stories like this only prove how we really are all in this together. We need to remember that. The fight for safety and the health of our families is not “me against you”, “it’s all of us against them”. It’s not “my truth vs your truth”, it’s the ACTUAL truth vs the myriad of lies all made easier to tell because we don’t want to change our minds. Your fellow mamas are not your enemies. The true enemies are those who seek to manipulate us all for their gain.

So, demand transparency. Demand truth. Hold fast to one another, fight FOR one another and fight for the one thing we ALL want no matter what side of the fence we stand on; the happiness and the healthy futures for our families. To know that money is not being placed above our child’s lives and to not be demonized because we’ve questioned authority. That really shouldn’t be too much to ask for.

Oh, and if you want the resources for the facts I cited, I can give them to you. I promise none of them come from websites offering the inside scoop on reptilians. 😉

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Published by TheCautiousMom

I am The Cautious Mom. I am a stay at home, freelance writing, site editor, vocal coach, homeschooling, counseling, advocate for our rights kind of mom.
I am a breastfeeding and child/mother's rights advocate.
I do what I can to help other moms know their options in a world that shuns that which is most natural.
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Here, we seek out those tools to help us be the best mothers possible.
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